Felicity Teague

A Cygnet in Spring

It’s early April; Spring seems late this year
to grace us with her presence once again,
to set about the bringing of her cheer,
yet following a week or so of rain

she comes in golden-green. The trumpets sound
and all round Upper Lake her flags fly high –
the birch, the lime, the London plane, all crowned
and fluttering beneath a cloudless sky.

Beside the lake, a cygnet stands, quite still
apart from grooming movements, beak to flank,
a careful combing through each whitening quill,
his feet well planted on the earthen bank.

The native cygnets left the lake in March,
chased off by both their parents. Best begone!,
the cob’s wings signalled, raised in angry arch,
the violence of the season for the swan.

The pair is nesting now, by Lower Lake;
this cygnet isn’t threatened at this spot.
A flock of pigeons struts, a mallard drake
swims past, pursues his aims. The sun is hot

yet comfortable today. The water gleams,
the cygnet rests his head a little while
in fleeting sleep. I wonder if he dreams;
his silver beak curves slightly in a smile.

Felicity Teague (Fliss) is a copyeditor by day and a poet come nightfall. She lives in Pittville, a suburb of Cheltenham (UK). Her poetry features regularly in the Spotlight of The HyperTexts; her work has also appeared in Amethyst, Lighten Up Online, New Verse Review, Snakeskin, The Dirigible Balloon, and The Ekphrastic Review. Her first collection (2022) is titled From Pittville to Paradise; her second (forthcoming), Interruptus: A Poetry Year. Other interests include art, film, and photography.